Week 1

Fruit Scene

Today I experimented with several object types in 3DS Max in order to create a scene containing a bowl of fruit. To begin with I created the green apple which was formed using the sphere primitive. This object was then converted to an editable poly so that it could be further manipulated into a more natural looking shape. I achieved this by selecting individual vertices in the sub-object level and alterted their positioning using the select and move tool. A vertice in the centre of the apple, on its top surface was sunken slighlty to create a dip for the stalk to sit in. The stalk was then created using the cone primitive which then had a bend modifier applied to it in addition to a slight bevel, this was done to give it a more organic appearance. The stalk was then positioned in the centre dip of the apple and I began to add materials to it using the material editor pop-up menu. I selected a green colour for the main body of the apple using the colour palette next to the diffuse option. I also increased the glossiness to give it a slight shine similar to that on the skin of a real apple. I then selected the stalk by entering sub-object level and control clicked the polygons that it was made from so that a brown coloured material would only be applied to the selected parts rather than the entire apple. Then to finish off the apple I added a Mesh Smooth modifier to round of the angles and make it appear more realistic.

The apple was then cloned to create an identical copy, this new apple was then given a red colour and positioned/rotated next to the original apple.

I then continued by making a surface for the fruit to sit on, I decided to make a bowl which was created using the line tool in combination with the lathe modifier. The line tool was used to create a cross-section for one half of the bowl, a lathe modifier was then applied to this line to produce the final bowl and I also ensured that the "weld core" tick box under the parametres settings was ticked to prevent a hole from appearing in the middle of the object. Again a Mesh Smooth modifier was applied to the bowl to give it a more realisitc appearance, I also gave it a green coloured material with a relatively high level of gloss to produce a glazed ceramic finish.

Lastly I constructed the banana by initially using a cylinder primitive with a low number of five sides to give it an angled look. I then added a couple of bend modifiers on different axis to give it a curved aspect, each end was also chamfered using the bevel tool. At one end I created a stalk by extruding the polygon made from the bevel, the entire object then had a mesh smooth modifier applied with a low degree of smoothing in order to retain angled sides. The banana was then coloured yellow with a brown stalk, I then rendered the scene and exported it as a JPEG.